[crAzerk]

Actually, cognitive neuroscience or anything related to the brain is one of my most hated fields in Psychology =X Way too complicated and boring for me haha. But I do understand that it is an exciting new field that is very promising.

Nevertheless, since you've bothered to compose a reply, I am obliged to reciprocate.
Btw, it's 'spatial*' not spacial.

If the girls were out owning face as a regular occurance then this belief wouldn't have been able to form in the first place.

I'm not sure what you are arguing for or commenting about in this paragraph.

are you prepared to also discuss the difference in brain development which occurs between male and females which ultimately leads to a difference in spacial skills?.

I dare not pretend to be an expert regarding the neurological differences between males and females, because tbh I've forgotten most of the specifics (just took the module Biological Psych last semester )

However, from what I do recall, even though studies do show these subtle differences such as those that you've listed, others have also argued that these differences are not significant. For example, just roughly quoting a percentage (may be off) that I recall, when comparing certain spatial / mathematically abilities, while males are better than females (and vice versa) in some aspects, it was only 52-53% of the males who were better.


More importantly, in discussing any such neurological influences (e.g. females have xyz part of their brain larger than males, therefore they have abc ability better), it is a severe flaw to leave out environmental/social influences in the explanation.

To use a simple and well-known example, women are said to be more emotional than men, and some attempts have been made to tie it in to certain brain structure differences.
However, some obvious explanations that can be made for such behaviour is that societal norms do not condone a male being very emotional or expressive. Often, males who behave in such ways may even be ostracized or simply looked badly upon.
Thus, it could be due to societal influences that cause this observed gender difference in emotional expression.


Therefore, I do not find it sufficient to merely discuss neurological differences to explain any gender differences.

And, from your more educated than me but still learning perspective, would you consider higher spacial skills a possible reason for women on average being less skilled in RTS and FPS games?

And in turn, would the greater communication skills women posses account for at least some of their greater success in MMO games?

There is a fundamental flaw in this whole argument, in trying to compare females vs males and trying to show if females are better gamers, etc. The flaw is this - how are you measuring it?
If there were two hypothesis:

1) Males are better than females at gaming
2) Males are not better than females at gaming
(a standard psych paradigm of hypothesis testing)

How do you prove that 1 is true? Is it when there are more males good at gaming than females? Is it when a male beats a female? Is it when the top male player beats a top female player? Is one female being a dominant gamer in her field sufficient to cause the hypothesis to be rejected?

The truth is there isn't really a way to make this comparison, and too many other confounds creep in. For instance, when you say females have some success in MMOs, but a significantly larger sample size of males playing games as compared to females naturally result in a larger volume of male gamers who are better than females, you can't really make any arguments due to these confounding variables.

You can't really support a hypothesis like this because it is not testable, and the only thing that people have ended up doing is making a generalization based on what they observe (which is obviously limited and not representative)

Quick Comments

	Kalikah:
	deL:

[zeffrin]

Great response, concede to most of your points except... if you want a practical example give a girl a street directory and ask her to navigate. If she turns the map chide her, if she's unable to determine left from right without turning the map she has limited spatial skills.

To compare we could easily gather a sample of men and women and test this, with maps, and those questions which show shapes rotated and ask you to identify which one doesn't match etc...

Then there's the fact most of this research has been done with an MRI, not by simple dissection.

However I appreciate you're unwilling to take a hard stance on a complicated, and controversial topic...

Also your suggested criterion are not specific enough... games is a huge range of things... are we talking about chess or word association?

Quick Comments

syfChadMann:

genralisations - fail bro.

[syfChadMann]

Originally Posted by zeffrin

Great response, concede to most of your points except... if you want a practical example give a girl a street directory and ask her to navigate. If she turns the map chide her, if she's unable to determine left from right without turning the map she has limited spatial skills.

To compare we could easily gather a sample of men and women and test this, with maps, and those questions which show shapes rotated and ask you to identify which one doesn't match etc...

Then there's the fact most of this research has been done with an MRI, not by simple dissection.

However I appreciate you're unwilling to take a hard stance on a complicated, and controversial topic...

Also your suggested criterion are not specific enough... games is a huge range of things... are we talking about chess or word association?

What does any of this have to do with you saying - 'Girls don't belong in esports'

There is a place for them.. any other opinion is sexist discrimination.
Promoting the 1% of casters that happen to be girls and giving them more opportunities is simple positive discrimination....

Your argument started off with you saying that women are invading a male domain and your outraged by it... And that they should stick to their Tupperware parties and baby showers...

What have you got to say about such outrageous comments of pure sexism (naive about your discrimination or not).

Quick Comments

	zeffrin:	You actually haven't read anything I wrote you?
	deL:

[crAzerk]

To compare we could easily gather a sample of men and women and test this, with maps, and those questions which show shapes rotated and ask you to identify which one doesn't match etc...

I'm not saying that there are no gender differences whatsoever. I'm saying that
- While there are some clear gender differences such as spatial perception, many of the purported differences are not significant (e.g. 2-3%)
- Even if these differences occur, does it necessarily tie back to neurological differences? I.e. Just because males perform better on the maps test, is it because their brains are wired to perform better in such tasks or are there other factors?

Then there's the fact most of this research has been done with an MRI, not by simple dissection.

I suppose you mean fMRI, because MRIs are used to look at brain structure, not brain activity
I'm not too familiar with the body of research done with fMRIs and gender differences, so I can't comment on this.

Also your suggested criterion are not specific enough

That is precisely my point. Those questions are all rhetorical in that paragraph.

[Maynarde]

I want this thread closed SO bad. Can't really do it without checking with people though, I'll get back to you all.

[syfChadMann]

Originally Posted by Maynarde

I want this thread closed SO bad. Can't really do it without checking with people though, I'll get back to you all.

Close it - its retarded.

[Maynarde]

The Chad has spoken, and so have I.

Everyone join me in celebrating my first ever closed thread as a mod!

Quick Comments

	ToR.Arnor:	THANK YOU
	ToRPandarine:	rep for first thread closure as mod! lol..no srsly..thank you
	Kalikah:	.... maybe we could do a part 2 :P

[nirvAnA]

Originally Posted by xGKingBenji

I'm just going to say 1 thing, and that is women get it a million times easier to do anything in the scene.

When a girl first gets noticed as a girl, everyone wants to be their friend, they get a bunch of contacts with important people in the community, simply for being a female, where a male in the same situation needs to work hard and prove themselves over a long period of time.

They also get alot more attention in whatever they do, if they become casters (which most do as I am yet to see a female in SEA that is capable of competing at a high level) they instantly get more viewers than their male equivalent. If they are an average caster, its completely fine and they still get a bunch of attention where the male equiv will disappear or need to work hard to improve their skills.

It may sound harsh, but being a female online is a thousand times easier than being a male.

This is so true. Just try acting like a girl in WoW (I know someone who did LOL - he got his gf to talk to them on skype, etc) you will level up the fastest you have in your life and any gear that drops will be force fed to you even though you can't even use it.

There is a difference in standards but its because of the girl / guy ratio NOT because of the persons actual gender. Anything that is scarce in quantity becomes more valuable thats how the world works. If there were equal number of female/male WoW players, or female/male sc2 players, this would never happen and girls will be treated just like how the males are but for now girls bring a breath of fresh air thats why they are so in demand. Still hoping a female day9 would suddenly appear in this world, that would be sick.